Musicals and the envoicing of mental illness and madness: From Lady in the Dark to Man of La Mancha (and beyond) | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 4, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2057-0341
  • E-ISSN: 2057-035X

Abstract

Abstract

Because musicals routinely position musical expression as an enabling form of madness, they can have a difficult time when they try to consider mental illness in thoughtful ways. This essay considers four prominent musicals that deal overtly with mental illness and/or madness to delineate these difficulties and show how musicals try to surmount them. The relatively few musical numbers in (1941) allow its protagonist Liza Elliott to both confront her mental block and give voice to her emancipation. In (1964), Hapgood's ambiguous mental status allows him to swing from absurdities to rebellion to the touchingly human, each phase differently opposing the insanities of the world. Quixote, in (1965), defies reality in favour of impossible dreams. And the songs of (2008) provide a panoply of escapes from the painful realities of the dysfunctional Goodman family, none of whom quite finds a way to a desired 'normal'. As these shows exemplify, mentally unstable women and men generally have different options in musicals: women (at least, Liza and Diana Goodman) are obliged to chart paths to mental wholeness, with decidedly mixed results, whereas men (at least, Hapgood and Quixote) are allowed to indulge their flights from reality as forms of romanticized idealism, becoming heroes and liberators in the process. exemplifies a renewed determination to take mental illness seriously in musicals, further advanced in the four-season television series Crazy .

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jivs_00006_1
2019-10-01
2024-05-01
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Altman, Rick. (1987), The American Film Musical, Bloomington:: Indiana University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bonds, Mark Evan. (2006), Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven, Princeton and Oxford:: Princeton University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. (1998), The Madwoman Can't Speak: Or Why Insanty is Not Subversive, Ithaca, NY:: Cornell University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ( 2015-19, United States: The CW Television Network).
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Deaville, James. (2015);, 'Sounds of mind: Music and madness in the popular imagination'. , in B. Howe,, S. Jensen-Moulton,, N. Lerner, and J. Straus. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies, Oxford University Press, pp. 640-57.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Deereux, Cecily. (2014);, 'Hysteria, feminism, and gender revisited: The case of the second wave'. , ESC: English Studies in Canada, 40:1, pp. 19-45.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Doane, Mary Ann. (1987), The Desire to Desire: The Woman's Film of the 1940s, Bloomington:: Indiana University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Donaldson, Elizabeth. (ed.) (2018), Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health, New York:: Palgrave Macmillan;.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Eidsheim, Nina. (2015), Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice, Durham and London:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Fleming, Victor. ([1939] 1999), The Wizard of Oz, MGM, DVD release, Turner Entertainment Co., Burbank, CA:: Warner Home Video;.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. (1997), Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, New York:: Columbia University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Hart, Moss,, Gershwin, Ira, and Weill, Kurt. (1944), Lady in the Dark, Cleveland and New York:: The World Publishing Company;.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Herson, Kellie. (2018);, 'Mad minds: Theorizing the intersection of gender, sexuality and mental illness in contemporary media discourse'. , Ph.D. thesis, Tempe:: Arizona State University;.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Hubert, Jane. (ed.) (2000), Madness, Disability, and Social Exclusion: The Archaelogy and Anthropology of 'Difference', New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Jenkins, Megan B.. (2010);, 'Madness, sexuality, and gender in early twentieth century music theater works: Four interpretive essays'. , Ph.D. thesis, New York:: Graduate Center, City University of New York;.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Kitt, Tom, and Yorkey, Brian. (2010), Next to Normal, New York:: Theatre Communications Group;.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Knapp, Raymond. (2004);, 'Assassins, Oklahoma!, and the "Shifting Fringe of Dark Around the Campfire"'. , Cambridge Opera Journal, 16:1, pp. 77-101.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Knapp, Raymond. (2005), The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, Princeton:: Princeton University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Knapp, Raymond. (2014);, 'Sondheim's America; America's Sondheim'. , in R. Gordon. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies, Oxford and New York:: Oxford University Press;, pp. 432-49.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Knapp, Raymond. (2015);, '"Waitin' for the Light to Shine": Musicals and disability'. , in B. Howe,, S. Jensen-Moulton,, N. Lerner, and J. Straus. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies, Oxford and New York:: Oxford University Press;, pp. 814-35.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Laurents, Arthur, and Sondheim, Stephen. (1976), Anyone Can Whistle, A Carl Peek Book, New York:: Leon Amiel Publisher;.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Lewis, Bradley. (2013);, 'A mad fight: Psychiatry and disability activism'. , in L. J. Davis. (ed.), The Disability Studies Reader, , 4th. ed., New York:: Taylor & Francis;.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. mcclung, bruce d.. (2007), Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical, Oxford and New York:: Oxford University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. McRuer, Robert, and Mallow, Anna. (eds) (2012), Crip Theory: Sex and Disability, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Quarm, Joan. (1968);, 'Dream within dream'. , El Paso Herald Post, 28 December , p. 38.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Shakespeare, Tom. (1999);, 'The sexual politics of disabled masculinity'. , Sexuality and Disability, 17:1, pp. 53-64.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Showalter, Elaine. (1993);, 'Hysteria, feminism, and gender'. , in S. Gilman,, H. King,, R. Porter,, G. S. Rousseau, and E. Showalter. (eds), Hysteria Beyond Freud, Berkeley:: University of California Press;, pp. 286-336.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Siebers, Tobin. (2010), Disability Theory and Disability Aesthetics, Ann Arbor:: University of Michigan Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Spelman, Nicola. (2012), Popular Music and the Myths of Madness, Burlington, VT:: Ashgate;.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Tubbs, Andrew. (2018);, 'Sounding the feeble mind: Musical reactions to the American eugenics movement in the film scores for Of Mice and Men (1939) and Oklahoma (1955)'. , MA Thesis, Iowa City:: University of Iowa;.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Wasserman, Dale,, Darion, Joe, and Leigh, Mitch. (1969), Man of La Mancha, New York:: Dell Publishing Co. Inc.;
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Weill, Kurt, and Gershwin, Ira. (1941), Lady in the Dark, Vocal Score, New York:: Chappell & Co., Inc.;
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Knapp, R., and Knapp, Z.. (2019);, 'Musicals and the envoicing of mental illness and madness: From Lady in the Dark to Man of La Mancha (and beyond)'. , Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 4:2, pp. 209-23, doi: 10.1386/jivs_00006_1
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/jivs_00006_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error